


Two of a Kind

by RandomFlyer



Category: Danny Phantom, Forever (TV 2014)
Genre: Abe has found the solution to his own eventual death, And Lucas is just panicking, Danny's in the same boat, Gen, Henry needs someone to look after, and to look after him, fight the boredom, i love crossovers, immortal and unaging Danny, minor depictions of violence and blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23302078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomFlyer/pseuds/RandomFlyer
Summary: Henry was very good at telling when a person was dead, so having one come back to life on his examination table naturally leads to questions.
Relationships: Abe Morgan & Henry Morgan, Henry Morgan & Lucas Wahl
Comments: 120
Kudos: 407





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be 5k or shorter. It's now three times as long. Don't know of any better time to post it than when people are bored at home, hopefully this helps with the lock-down blues.

**Chapter 1**

Henry Morgan disliked preforming autopsies on children in the best of circumstances. This was not the best of circumstances.

“It appears the cause of death was the stab wound in the left shoulder. If the knife severed the brachial artery, which it likely did considering the placement and severity of the wound, he could have bled out in moments.” Henry glanced down at the wide pool of tacky blood. “And there certainly seems to be enough blood loss to account for that. The knife still being in the wound might have slowed the flow but if it was jostled he still wouldn’t have much time.”

“Looks like we have a temperature of seventy-one degrees, on the nose,” Lucas said, even his normally chipper attitude in the face of death was absent with the young body between them.

Henry frowned. “Cooler than I would have expected, considering the body doesn’t seem to have been here long enough to reach ambient temperature. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in and won’t for hours.”

Lucas could only shrug in reply.

“I hate it when it’s kids,” Detective Hanson said, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing away from the body. “He’s gotta be what, fourteen? Not more than that.”

“And a runaway if I’m reading his clothes and condition right,” Jo Martinez said, from where she crouched by the boy’s body.

A jogger discovered the body late in the morning. It was the body of a fourteen year old boy, shaggy and unkempt black hair surrounding a pale and gaunt face. The eyes slit open showed blue and his clothes had weeks of grime and dirt rubbed into them. The body lay tucked away behind a pillar and overgrown bush. Only a taped and worn red shoe poked out visible from the path. It was likely the reason the body remained undiscovered till almost noon.

“There’s no sign of a bag or backpack,” Henry said, sweeping the scene for any additional clues. “The positioning of the body implies someone attempted to hide it from sight, quite possibly a robbery.”

“Don’t imagine he had much to steal, but people get desperate on the streets,” Hanson said. He looked at the body again and cursed. “Not much older than my boys,” he muttered before turning away.

Henry glanced toward Detective Hanson. Many of his coworkers and colleagues considered Henry oblivious, but he was a father and he remembered when Abraham was this old. Looking up, Henry could see a growing crowd of curious bystanders. Thanks to the approaching lunch hour there were more people in the park now.

Henry motioned for an unusually quiet Lucas. “I think we have as much as we can get from him here. We’ll get him back to the morgue and start the autopsy.”

Lucas nodded. “Sure thing, boss,” he muttered and prepared to transport the body.

The morgue was nearly empty thanks to the lunch hour now in full swing. The first thing Henry did was remove the knife, a common steak knife so no help there in determining the killer, and bagged it for Detective Martinez. She arrived from the scene shortly after to collect her evidence.

“Prep the body, would you, Lucas?” Henry said. He handed her the evidence bag and walked her toward the door.

“Thanks,” Jo said taking the bag. “I’ll run this down to the forensics lab, see if they can get any prints, but don’t hold your breathe. This case is going to be back burned so fast your head will spin.”

Henry paused. “Back burned? Are you implying that this boy’s case will be ignored in favor of other priorities?” After months of working with Jo on homicide investigations, Henry was slowly coming to the understanding that justice, or at least the organizations tasked with carrying her out, was not as blind as they claimed. Still, to casually dismiss a murder investigation even before it started was too much for him.

“Homeless kid stabbed in the park?” Jo shook her head. “There’s a good chance it was another homeless person, strong possibility of drugs involvement. The fact is we’ll most likely never find out who did it and even if we do get something back from the knife, by the time the lab’s done the killer will be long gone.”

“Doc!” Lucas called from the exam table.

“Just a moment, Lucas,” Henry threw over his shoulder, “But this is someone’s child. They deserve closure.”

Jo shrugged. “I’m not saying we won’t try. We’ll run him through the system, see if there’s any missing persons reports, try and contact family. Hopefully, he’ll have someone to claim him, but too often no one ever shows up. Then, with no one to press for answers… and besides, there really isn’t much to go on here,” she huffed a sigh. “Look, don’t get your hopes up, Henry. I know you’re used to our cases coming to a much more satisfying end, but as far as murder investigations go, this is more of a norm than the last couple of cases you’ve worked.”

“Doc!” Lucas called, louder.

Henry huffed, rubbing his forehead. “In a moment!” He focused back on Jo. “We haven’t even looked at the body yet, there could very well be vital clues that aid in finding the killer faster than you realize. Already the mystery of body temperature and blood coagulation gives us something more to investigate. Don’t give up hope, Detective.”

“I admire your optimism.” Jo grimaced, looking at Henry in concern. “But this is one type of murder you’re just going to have to get used to if you’re going to work homicide. Not everything is some intricate plan by a villain. Sometimes it’s just humanity being violent.”

“HENRY!” Lucas yelled panic in his voice, drawing both Henry and Jo’s attention.

“What is it Lucas? What’s wrong?” Henry hurried over to the table frowning at Lucas’s white face and wide eyes.

“The body!” Lucas gasped, panic not subsiding. “It’s-It’s-” He threw his hands in a sharp gesture toward the exam table.

Henry looked down at the body and felt the blood drain from his own face. The shirt lay cut open, the tattered remains hanging over the table still under the boy’s back. The torso was thin, ribs conspicuous likely from weeks of poor nutrition. Scars crisscrossed over the ribs and abdomen, far more and varied than would be expected on the average runaway. Henry deduced the boy probably came from an abusive background. That wasn’t the cause of Lucas’s panic. No, the cause was the telltale “Y” shaped scar starting at each shoulder and traveling down the center of the body.

“Wait,” Jo said, hands going out as if to stop everything. “Someone’s already performed an autopsy?”

“At the very least attempted,” Henry breathed as he stepped closer to get a better look, “The incisions have healed so the boy must have survived…” He trailed off, eyes turning toward the stab wound in the shoulder. Blood trickled out of the wound. It leaked out in a slow flow dripping down and soaking into the boy’s ragged and destroyed clothing.

“OH SHIT HE’S BLEEDING!” Lucas gasped, not enough breath in his voice to turn it into the yell it should have been. “How can he be bleeding? He was dead!”

Henry surged forward and checked for a pulse under the jaw, sure enough there was a faint thump thrumming under the skin. Medical training kicked in despite Henry’s numb shock. He grabbed a wad of gauze lying on the instruments table and pressed it into the wound. His wide eyes kept traveling back to the boy’s face despite his frenzied movement because Lucas was right. This boy had been dead.

“He was dead!” Lucas repeated still fixed in his place on the other side of the body.

No… the boy, because this person was still alive. Henry could feel the growing pulse, under his hands gaining strength rather than losing it and being alive turned it from an object to a person. It still didn’t change the absolute impossibility of it.

“We stabbed his liver! Seventy-one degrees! He was dead!” It seemed Lucas could not get past that fact.

“We did stab his liver,” Henry realized in a rush. “Lucas check the abdominal wound!” Henry should have remembered that sooner than he did. He was still in shock. The medical impossibility now under his care only increased as the boy grew noticeably warmer. The blood flowed faster, staining the gauze red, and the heart beat stronger.

“What?” Jo finally shaking off her own shock. “How is he not dead?” Her gaze darted around from Henry to Lucas and back to the boy.

Almost as if in response to her statement the boy drew in a deep, gasping breath. His body jerked to life, chest moving up and down in juddering leaps. His eyes flew open. He took a wild sweeping look around him, gazing running over Henry, Jo, and Lucas before coming back to Henry in panic.

“Jo! Call 911! Get an ambulance here!” Henry ordered, finally overcoming the shock of the dead coming back to life. Perhaps it was the clear evidence from breath returning to the body or the blue fading into a healthier pink around the lips and face, but he could tackle the mystery before him when the boy was stabilized.

With a guttural “no!” the boy pushed Henry away and rolled off the table.

No one should be able to move like that after losing the amount of blood this boy had. Henry only had a moment to reflect on the fact before the boy grabbed Henry’s hunting knife sitting on the instrument table.

“No hospitals! Get away from me!” the boy hissed. He slashed the knife at Henry forcing Henry back another step before bringing the knife up again. 

Henry raised both hands in a calming gesture. The boy was now bleeding heavily from his shoulder.

“Alright, let’s everyone remain calm,” Henry said against his own racing heart. He kept his eyes fixed on the boy but could hear Lucas’s fast and heavy breathing behind him, muttering about zombies and the undead. A panic attack from his assistant would not help calm the tension in the air. Henry would have to speak to him about that.

“Hey, hey,” Jo said, creeping up from Henry’s periphery. “You don’t need to be afraid, we’re just trying to help.” She placed a hand on Henry’s arm, gently trying to pull him back. Henry refused to move and waved her off. Thankfully she didn’t have her gun drawn but held the other hand up in a calming gesture similar to Henry’s.

The boy huffed a strained laugh. “Oh, like I haven’t heard that one before,” he said, backing up a step. “This is a _morgue_. You’re a _cop_.” He shifted from one foot to another, body tense and trembling.

“Yes,” Henry said, taking a step forward despite Jo’s insistent tugging on his arm. “You were mistakenly brought here when you were misidentified as deceased.” Even as he said it, he knew that was wrong. This boy was dead not even a quarter hour ago, but there was no need to panic the young man even more.

“Sure, it’s all just a misunderstanding,” the boy growled, scowling from Henry to Jo as he switched pointing the knife from one to the other. “Then there shouldn’t be any problem with just letting me go.” His gaze flashed to somewhere behind Henry’s shoulder, probably the door, before returning to Henry and Jo.

Henry frowned. The boy was panicking less about waking up in the morgue and from being caught. “You’re injured,” Henry repeated, “let me tend your injury and then we’ll discuss you leaving.”

“I’m not stupid. You’re not that kind of doctor,” the boy shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting around for a way past Henry and Jo. “You cut people open, not sew them back together. And I’m not letting that happen.”

“I assure you,” Henry said taking another slow step forward. “I am more than qualified to treat your injury.” Injuries, Henry silently corrected himself, looking at the blood staining the boy’s jeans, not as much as he would expect, though. “But first you need to put down the knife.”

“Will you let me go?” the boy asked looking from Henry to Jo and back.

No, they would not let a minor with a serious injury whom someone had recently attacked just walk back out on the streets. No need to tell the boy that, though. “We’ll talk about that once I’ve tended to your injuries.”

The boy winced, flexing his left hand. He chewed on his lip for a moment. “The cop’s gotta go,” the boy said, flicking the knife in Jo’s direction.

Jo opened her mouth. “It’s alright, Detective,” Henry said, cutting off any comment she could make. “I think the first order of business is to tend to the injuries and then we can see where to go from there.” He glanced over to Jo and found the detective glaring daggers at him. “Lucas and I can look after the wounds. I’m sure you have other matters to attend to first.”

“I’ll leave when you put down the knife,” Jo said turning back to the boy. She softened her usual commanding voice, but still kept the firm tone. “I can’t leave you in here with a weapon and threatening my two favorite MEs.”

The boy clenched his jaw a couple times. The knife dropped an inch or two. “Promise you’ll leave?”

“I’ll leave the room when you put the knife down and if you follow Doctor Morgan’s instructions,” Jo said.

A staring match ensued. The only things breaking the silence was the steady drip of blood from the boy’s shoulder to a growing pool on the floor and the boy’s shuddering breath. The boy shook with the effort of standing and holding the knife and while his color was better than the bluish-gray of a corpse he was still white as a ghost. At least, Lucas sounded like he got himself under control.

The boy glared at Jo for several moments before he slowly lowered the knife

Jo, in response, backed away. He tracked her movements. When he had brought the knife down to his side, he shuffled to the exam table and set the blade down on it. From the corner of his eye, Henry saw Jo hesitate at the door but motioned for her to leave.

“Would you ensure no one else comes into the lab?” Henry asked. The last thing they needed was new people involved with the situation and shattering the uneasy truce.

Jo nodded and slipped out the door.

Henry turned his entire focus on the boy. Taking a steadying breath, he stepped closer. “Now, let’s take a look at that shoulder of yours. Lucas could you go get the first aid kit?”

The boy tensed even more and the shaking increased as Henry drew closer but he left the knife where it lay. Lucas shot off to fetch the white plastic kit. It was an extensive first aid kit, much more so than when Henry first arrived, but Henry being a doctor and working with the police could not in good conscious leave the office kit so woefully under-prepared. Even without the close working relationship with the NYPD, there was always the off chance some poor soul was misidentified as deceased and woke up on the exam table, not unlike the boy in front of him.

Henry frowned as he helped the boy climb back up on the table, facing the door. The boy refused to sit any other way. Yes, Henry heard stories about people being misidentified as deceased and delivered to the morgue. This boy’s case was different. The boy had been dead. Henry was certain. Now the boy was not only alive but moving around with surprising strength and lucidity that should be impossible considering the injury and blood loss. There was something more going on here and the possibilities sent Henry’s thoughts whirling.

“What’s your name?” Henry asked, as he took the first aid kit from Lucas and clicked it open.

The boy hesitated before muttering “David,” down into his lap.

That was a lie. Henry would bet money on it. The boy’s name could possibly begin with a D but it was not David. Henry couldn’t blame the boy for lying, though. At best, the boy was a runaway. At worst…well, Henry would be more sympathetic to the boy’s situation than anyone but himself, and perhaps Abe, would realize.

“That’s a good name,” Henry said, “Does it come with a surname?” he pulled on a pair of gloves, eyeing the wound. The blood flow didn’t bear the trademark color and intensity that came with severing a major artery, at least not any more. David probably wouldn’t agree to surgery anyway, however much Henry would have preferred someone got a better look at the damage.

David sent him a confused look.

“A last name,” Henry clarified forgoing his usual sigh at the degeneration of educational standards.

“Smith,” David came back and set his glare back on the floor with the occasional glance toward Lucas and the door. Jo’s outline stood on just the other side of the frosted glass doors. There were other figures gathered around her, uniforms by the color of their clothing. She undoubtedly alerted others to the situation. Henry was just relieved no one decided to overrule the decision to keep others out of the room just yet.

“Well, David Smith,” Henry said. “I’m going give you a local anesthetic to help with the pain before I examine the wound more and stitch it back together. Any allergies I should know about, latex, iodine?” David shook his head and Henry continued, “While I do that, how about you tell me exactly what happened?”

Henry prepared the wound, ignoring how the boy stiffened even more at the sight of a needle. 

“I got stabbed,” David said, lifting his uninjured shoulder. “Almost died, got sent here. Not much to tell.”

Henry tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips. He made a show of thinking about it for a moment before saying, “Not exactly a complete account of events.” Or and honest one, Henry thought before continuing. “When did you get stabbed?” He sterilized the area around the wound.

“In the morning,” David said eyes fixed on the floor in front of him, gaze hard and voice flat.

Henry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He glanced at Lucas who still stood well away from the table, eyeing the boy with simultaneous horror and excitement. No doubt, Henry’s assistant was ruminating on those comic books he read at lunch. “Lucas would you leave us for a moment?” Henry asked.

Lucas jerked. He tore his gaze away from David and blinked at Henry. “Uh,” he stammered, looking back to the boy and then to Henry again.

Henry leveled a _look_ at Lucas, hoping the younger, more excitable man refrained from stating any misgivings out loud. David was tense enough without adding the stress of Lucas’s speculations.

“Yeah, I’ll just…” Lucas gestured behind him and nodded. “Yeah.” He turned and left, his shadow joining Jo just outside the frosted glass doors. From the sharp movement of Jo’s outline, Henry guessed she was not happy about Lucas leaving Henry alone with a potentially dangerous patient.

No matter, Henry turned back to David. Nothing helped build trust like giving a person a good alibi, at least in Henry’s experience. “I know this must be very stressful for you,” Henry started. “Particularly waking to find yourself in the morgue. Cases of…” he hunted for a plausible excuse for the spontaneous recovery, fabricated or not, and hit on an article he’d read in a medical journal years before, “the Lazarus phenomenon is rare, but it does happen.”

“Lazarus Phenomenon?” David asked.

“Spontaneously coming back from the dead,” Henry explained in a gentle tone.

David sucked in a breath, stiffened and jerked back from Henry, his glare, sharpened by thin cheeks shot up to Henry. David’s hand twitched toward the knife before his tightened it into a fist in his lap. That was a stronger reaction than Henry expected. Combined with the scar on David’s chest, Henry could draw at least one possible explanation, however unlikely it seemed. David opened his mouth but Henry spoke first.

Henry held out his hands in a peace offering, sutures in one hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, “Scientific oddity aside, there is precedence for such a thing. I’ll respect your privacy as will Detective Martinez and Lucas. We won’t tell anyone.” Henry glanced at David’s shoulder wound, still bleeding at a worrying rate. David’s color paled to sheet while, but considering the boy was stone dead an hour ago, Henry assumed the danger wasn’t as serious as with a normal person. He didn’t let it worry him…too much. They needed to settle this, gain some trust.

“You don’t seriously expect me to believe that,” David ground out through clenched teeth, gaze darting between the door and Henry. “You have to fill out paperwork, explain what happened to your boss and whatever other oversight this place has. You’re going to have to tell somebody. The people out there are already talking about it.”

Henry tried for a rueful smirk, but wasn’t sure how much of it made it past the worry. “You’d be surprised how mundane even the most remarkable events can be if phrased the right way on the paperwork,” Henry said. “As long as the insurance is satisfied, no one will look any further. As for the talk, rumors always embellish on what actually happened. ”

“Why?” David asked, gaze narrowing to slits, “You doctors love shit like this. You can write papers on it, get famous, or grant money, or whatever.”

“I’m not worried about that. I’m happy with my own anonymity and I have enough money to be getting on with, I am, however, concerned for you and your safety,” Henry said. He moved in slow, like approaching a wounded, frightened animal. “And that includes your own anonymity.”

David scoffed. He muttered something under his breath, but remained still as Henry finally began closing the wound.

Henry focused on the wound, tried to project honesty with every motion, every expression, every word, and very carefully did not look at the ‘Y’ incision scar on David’s chest. That scar represented so many of Henry’s own fears of discovery, even some of his past experiences. If Henry’s conclusion about the boy were true and David did have a condition even remotely similar to Henry’s, he would have to proceed with caution. However the boy’s immortality worked, if it truly was immortality, he apparently had to carry the scars of his injuries with him to some extent, unlike Henry. Considering the number of them, Henry wondered how long the boy had been alive.

Henry felt a swell of empathy for the boy in front of him. Henry had been in nearly this exact position multiple times. Especially in the early years of his curse, he lived in fear of discovery, of returning to the insane asylum or even falling into the hands of a curious medical professional who let their curiosity overrule their humanity or ethics. Certainly, before Bedlam, he never thought a fellow doctor could deliberately inflict that sort of suffering on another human being. His instincts rebelled against revealing his secret to anyone, but he needed to try and help this boy and for that he needed the boy to trust him.

Perhaps, giving a little more information would be enough. “I…have seen something like this before, not what happened to you, specifically,” he hurried when David jerked again at the revelation, “but someone who came back from the dead. I understand why a…situation like that is important to hide. I won’t tell anyone, you have my word.”

There was still wiggle room to pretend it was a one-time event. In situations like David’s and Henry’s, plausible deniability could mean everything. Sometimes it was all that stood between Henry and discovery, especially in the last couple of months.

David chewed his lip, eyes flicking to Henry’s face, watching Henry’s every move. The boy remained steady as Henry stitched in the injury closed, not even a flinch which was both impressive and troubling. Henry let the silence stretch, wary of pushing too hard. Unless the boy managed to slip away from custody, David would be around for at least a short time. Hopefully long enough for Henry to cajole into a real conversation.

Henry finished the stitches. He tacked a pad of gauze over them for the time being. He would have to run David through mobility tests for that arm later. The knife Henry had pulled out could easily leave additional nerve damage. Though, Henry’s impression at the crime scene was that the artery had been severed and by all evidence that was no longer the case. Henry just hoped his deductions about the boy’s condition were accurate.

Henry turned his attention to the next stab wound, the one from their own liver thermometer. Henry’s frown deepened when he checked the side puncture wound. The probe should have entered David’s liver, should still be bleeding regularly, but the bleeding had nearly stopped.

“Don’t worry about it,” David hissed and brought a hand to clamp over the wound. “It’ll be fine.”

Henry looked up at the boy, equal parts concerned and intrigued.

David’s gaze shifted to the doors behind Henry. Raised voices came from the other side a moment before they opened.

David’s arms flew up to cross over his chest. Henry scowled and gently pulled the boy’s injured arm down again. He shuffled his feet to put himself between the boy and whomever came into the room. At least, there was no major nerve damage.

“Keep that arm still as much as possible,” Henry said. He swept the lab coat off himself and onto David’s shoulders. He pulled the front closed hiding the many scars over David’s torso.

David’s eyes flicked up to Henry’s, glare dropping off his face in shock. Henry gave a small smile and nodded in encouragement. The corner of David’s mouth twitched in an almost smile before flattening again as the intruder spoke.

“You must be David,” a woman’s voice said behind Henry. Henry recognized the voice as Liz Jenkins, the liaison between the police department and child protective services. “I heard about what happened and came down as soon as I could. Is he alright?” She turned her question to Henry.

“He’ll mend,” Henry said, turning to face the woman. “There doesn’t seem to be any significant nerve damage, but he’ll need to have it checked more thoroughly to be sure.” He never much liked the bureaucrat. Her job was necessary, Henry knew, and it was often thankless. The few times he’d been in her office the woman’s desk was buried in active files. Her makeup didn’t quite cover the dark circles under eyes, either. Still, she long since seemed to give into the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it.

Ms. Jenkins nodded. Jo stood behind her, glaring only mildly at the child protective service agent’s back. Lucas stood next to her, shifting from foot to foot and worrying at his lip.

“Good, it’s lucky I was already in the building for another case, saves the trip of coming back,” Ms. Jenkins pulled out some paper work from her brief case with a put-upon sigh. “We might as well get this started, do you have any family that can come get you while the police work on your case?”

“There is no case,” David spoke up, drawing frowns from the adults in the room.

“David, you were stabbed,” Jo said, frown torn between puzzled and cautious. “We need to investigate that, make sure whoever did it doesn’t hurt you or anyone else again.”

David shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. He dropped them to his side again as he caught Henry’s glare for moving his injured arm. Instead, he reached up with his uninjured arm and held the lab coat closed with a fisted grip. “You can look for the guy all you want. Even if you find him, I’m not pressing charges so nothing’s gonna come of it. Now can I leave?”

Jo furrowed her brow, opening her mouth to reply but Ms. Jenkins spoke before she could.

“You’re a minor, you can’t leave without proper adult supervision. Now do you have family we can contact or not?” Ms. Jenkins set her over-full brief case on the table and dug through the contents.

“No, I don’t,” David ground out, scowling at the woman. “What’s more, I don’t need any. I can look after myself.”

“The injury to your shoulder says otherwise,” Ms. Jenkins said, focused on her search. “State law requires you have a guardian, unless you have an official letter of emancipation?” She looked at David’s scowling face then turned back to her briefcase. “I thought not.”

“Perhaps if I talked to David,” Henry spoke up. The last thing they needed was this bureaucrat distancing David any more than necessary.

Ms. Jenkins shifted her gaze from David to Henry and back again. “Fine. I’ll go get the documents ready to put him in State custody. In the meantime, try and confirm if he has a guardian or not.” Then she turned and left.

Henry glared at the door. He knew the woman was over-worked, probably underpaid, and definitely calloused to this sort of situation. Henry himself had times when the amount of pain he felt and saw over his long lifetime seemed to numb him from recognizing the tragedies happening around him. Still, he managed to find it in him to keep a good bedside manner. Couldn’t she?

Shaking his head, Henry turned back to David. Now was not the time to reflect on Ms. Jenkins or her bedside manner. “Detective, would you give me a moment with David alone?”

Jo looked between the two of them, then nodded. She dragged Lucas back out into the hall and Henry found himself alone with the boy once again.

“You need to come up with a guardian,” Henry said, without preamble.

“I told you, don’t have one, don’t need one.” David looked away, a scowl settling on his face.

Henry shook his head. “You need to realize, the NYPD is not going to let you leave on your own. You’re a minor and there are laws concerning your welfare. It is far better for your…” Henry considered several words he could use without outright saying anything indiscrete, “situation if you do not have to spend time with a city provided guardian.”

“Yeah, we all know what _those_ can be like,” David muttered, rolling his eyes. His gaze slid back to Henry and he scrutinized the doctor. “Why do you care?”

Henry couldn’t say he thought he knew what David was going through, that Henry had experienced something similar. He couldn’t reveal his own secret. Too many years of carefully tight lips prevented that so Henry settled for something vague, “I’ve seen people in your situation before,” he ignored David’s sotto voiced “doubt it” and pushed on, “believe me it’s better if you can call someone, anyone. Perhaps a family friend, employer, school teacher, even a shelter employee would work for a short term basis. It just needs to be someone you know who can agree to look after you for a short time.”

“I’m Houdini, they’re never going to hold on to me for long,” David shrugged, a thankfully one-shouldered gesture.

Henry shook his head. “I have no doubt, but it will be easier to just produce someone that is willing to take you in for a short time if you can rather than have the department immediately notified of your escape. At the very least, it would give you a chance to rest and recover before going out on your own again.” Henry had been in similar situations where he needed to choose between escape and bluffing his way out of some conundrum.

David grimaced. He looked down at his right hand, flexed it a couple times before cursing and shaking his head. “Would you be willing to do it?” he asked after a moment of silence.

Henry opened his mouth, closed it, then cocked his head. “I’m not sure…” he tapered off. While his initial reaction was to reject the idea, it would provide the opportunity to observe the boy more thoroughly. Henry would be able to perhaps investigate how this boy went from being dead with a mortal wound to alive with an injury half as dangerous as the initial wound. It may not be exactly like Henry’s own condition but it was close enough to warrant further exploration. If the end result of the boy’s condition was immortality, like Henry, they would most likely run across paths again in the future and Henry would like someone to share immortality with besides Adam. If he was wrong about the whole thing, a few days was hardly going to reveal any secrets.

“Very well,” Henry said, still hesitant, “You’re welcome to stay at my home for a short while, but only until we find better accommodations.”

“You mean until the heat dies down and I can disappear like the ghost I am,” David said, smirk creeping into his expression.

Henry drew in a deep breath, already regretting his decision. “I mean, until we find you better accommodations than the last minute state custody they’ll produce today. Really, the street is no place for a person your age, and especially not injured like you are. I’ve worked in this office long enough to have seen my fair share of runaways end here.”

David huffed, muttering some comment under his breath about age that Henry failed to catch in full.

Henry turned and called Jo and Lucas back into the room. “I’ll be looking after David for the time being.”

“You?” Jo repeated pulling back with her face scrunching in confusion. “Do you even know how to handle kids much less a teenager?”

“It’ll only be for a few days,” Henry said, trying hard not to be insulted. He’d been closed off with his co-workers, they had no reason to expect he’d been a father in a former life.

David scoffed at the same time. “I can handle myself just fine, especially with a guaranteed roof over my head.”

Jo looked between Henry and David a moment, a smirk growing on her face. “This might be entertaining. I’m going to go start the paperwork for you. Oh, and I want to be there when you tell Abe.”

Lucas, however, shifted from one foot to another, concerned expression twitching from David to Henry. He stepped forward, grabbing Henry’s arm and pulled him to the other end of the room. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he hissed, glancing back to where David stared at them. “That kid is basically a zombie.”

“Lucas,” Henry sighed, shoulders sagging and eyes rolling.

Lucas held up two shaking hands. “Alright, I’ll grant you he’s showing way too much cognitive function so maybe he’s not a zombie. He is a vampire or something, though. He was dead, definitely dead and now he’s not! And that stab would? Somebody was clearly trying to stab him through the heart, exactly where you would stab a vampire if you wanted to kill it! Add in the “y” incision scars? Come on! You’re the observant one here, how are you not seeing this?”

“I can hear you, you know,” David said.

Lucas flinched and pulled Henry into Henry’s office before closing the door. Henry shifted so he could keep an eye on David through the window. “Lucas, you’re being irrational. There are no such things as vampires.”

“Well, that’s not true,” Lucas huffed. “I dated this girl in college-“

Henry spoke up and over any unfortunate information he was about to learn about Lucas’s previous dating experiences. “Vampires in the supernatural and mythological sense do not exist. There is a perfectly rational explanation for what has happened here and we will find it.” Well, perhaps not rational in the sense of conventional science, but whatever it was, the explanation certainly didn’t include _vampires_.

Movement from the examination room caught Henry’s eye and he refocused his attention. David was gone. Henry rushed out of his office and up the center aisle. David lay on the ground gasping for breath through clenched teeth and face screwed up in pain.

“You shouldn’t be moving around,” Henry rebuked as he took David’s arm and helped him off the floor.

The boy was pale and his eyes were clenched shut. He nodded. “Yeah,” he breathed, teeth still clenched tight. “This is going to take a day or two.”

“I should think so,” Henry said, flashing back to when Abraham was a teenager and pushed things too far. Boys never really changed, no matter what decade it was. Perhaps, he wasn’t as ready to have a teenager in the house as he thought.

**TBC…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not expecting such a big reaction to this. You guys are awesome and made my week! Hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy!

**Chapter 2**

Danny shuffled out of the building, propped up on one side by, Dr. Morgan, the morgue doctor that agreed to take him in for a few days. It didn’t take too long to convince the social services lady to let the doctor look after Danny. Apparently, she had enough work on her plait that she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Plus, working for the city already required the background checks they would have needed anyway. Even with that time saver, they still spent a couple of hours sorting out the paperwork. Apparently, the only murder reported that day was Danny’s and that was downgraded to assault and battery. So Doctor Morgan was free to leave for the rest of the afternoon, barring any other corpses turning up in their territory.

“I’ll come back and pick up my bicycle once I get David settled in,” Doctor Morgan said to the detective as he climbed into the cab after Danny.

Danny slid down against the door and rested his head on the window. He really just wanted to sleep. Coming back from the dead always wiped him out in the worst possible ways. He’d only had to do it a couple times before and none of those were fun. The worst was still his first death, waking up after they did the autopsy in an air tight and refrigerated drawer, aching all over and with a barely healed y-incision in his chest. He had very nearly suffocated before he had summoned enough energy to phase out of the drawer and get out of the morgue.

A jolt shot through Danny and he startled only to realize it was the cab stopping in front of an antique shop.

Danny blinked. He must have fallen asleep. He blinked again. It took a moment for him to remember how he’d gotten in a cab with the pain in his shoulder.

"David?" someone said, "David are you alright?" It was the doctor...from the morgue. He already had his door open and seatbelt off. "Perhaps we should go to the hospital, after all."

"No hospital," Danny ground out. He shook his head, forcing a better focus on his surroundings. The movement made his equilibrium sway, but he was still leaning against the car door, so Danny was pretty certain neither he nor the world actually moved.

Morgan, the doctor's name was Henry Morgan. The doctor agreed to act as Danny's temporary guardian to get him out of the clutches of state custody. If they went to a hospital, Danny could still end up in state custody and that was one thing he really wanted to avoid. He fumbled for the car door, and nearly fell out into the street when he finally got it open. Only Morgan’s quick grab on Danny’s shirt stopped him from hitting the ground.

“Careful, you’re still recovering,” Morgan said and pulled Danny back to an upright position. “Just wait, I’ll help you out.”

The doctor exchanged a quick thanks and some money with the cabbie, before hurrying around to help Danny. Danny pulled away as soon as he managed to get his feet under him and staggered onto the sidewalk.

The cabbie might have said something concerning Danny's condition, but Danny failed to catch it. He was too focused on not falling flat on his face. Coming back from the dead really left him more wiped than anything. Trying to go invisible back at the morgue did not help in anyway and it would only get worse if he didn't get some sleep.

"This way," Morgan said. One hand went to guide Danny, feather light, just as a precaution, and the other gestured toward the antique shop. Danny didn’t trust his balance to pull away a second time.

"You live in a store?" Danny asked, frowning at the ‘open’ sign hung on the door.

"The apartment above it, actually," Morgan said. A bell rang as he opened the door. "Abraham?" he called. He held the door as he guided Danny inside.

Danny shuffled through, looking around at his surroundings. It was a small antique store sitting on the street corner. Two walls had large windows, easy escape routes if necessary. There was a door in the back and the type of nineteenth and early twentieth century furnishings and trinkets you'd expect to find in a more expensive antique store. The many knickknacks sitting around could act as useful ammunition if he needed to defend himself before his powers came back. It wouldn't work so much against any ghost but for a human it would work in a pinch, if he could get the strength needed.

"You're home early," an old man came out from the back. He cocked his head when he saw Danny. "Who's this?"

"This is David." Morgan introduced, "He'll be our houseguest for a short time. David, this is my… friend, Abraham. He owns this antique store."

There was the briefest hesitation over the word friend. Danny wasn't sure if he even heard it, his focus was so strained. He lifted a hand in what could have been a wave.

"Houseguest?" Abraham said with a puzzled, propping two fists on his waist. "What do you mean, houseguest?"

"David's going to be staying with us for a short while. I'll explain later," Morgan added in a sotto voice, as if Danny wasn’t standing right.

Danny looked between the two men, entirely too tired to follow people talking around him. He settled on the old man. “I’m a homeless minor that got stabbed and needed a guardian so I didn’t end up in state custody.”

Abraham’s eyebrows rose.

“Technically this is state custody,” Morgan said and gestured to the back door. “Staircase to the apartment is in the back.”

“It’s state custody that’s not going to care if I slip my noose in a few days when I’m healed up,” Danny mumbled.

Abraham’s eyebrows rose even more, and a smirk quirked his lips. “Kinda reminds me of another difficult patient I know,” he muttered.

“None of that from you,” Morgan sighed at the older man and turned back to Danny. “And you will most certainly not be healed in a matter of days,” Morgan said. There was definitely a fatherly scolding note in that tone, to both of them, but at least he didn’t deny that Danny would be allowed to disappear after he was healed.

Apparently, Abraham picked up on that as well. “But you’re going to let him just walk off when he _is_ healed?” His tone was as incredulous as those raised eyebrows were.

Morgan raised his voice toward the old man following them up the stairs. “I’ll explained later, Abraham.” There was that dad-tone again. It was starting to get painful to hear, brought up too many memories.

Danny closed his eyes with a huff for just a moment. It was a moment too long as he stumbled over the last few steps. Morgan’s supporting hand kept him from laying out flat, though. Danny forced his eyes open after that. Coming back from the dead, healing the stab wound in his shoulder and again from the liver probe was really just too much for his body to take. He didn’t even know when his last decent meal was. Really, Danny was surprised he came back at all, or that he was conscious.

“Let’s get you sat down,” Morgan said. “Before you fall down.”

They pivoted and Danny got a brief glimpse of one part of a kitchen before they were turned to face a living room area with comfortable chairs and a couch.

“I’ll get a towel for him to sit on,” Abraham said. “Don’t give me that look, Henry. He’s filthy and still has blood on him. Do you want to have to clean the couch later?”

“S’alright,” Danny said, the word coming out more slurred than he wanted to admit. “Need a shower, I know.” He did need a shower the last one he had was…days ago? He wasn’t sure. He was used to the grime by now, but the dried blood still clinging to places left him uncomfortable. At the moment, he was just too tired to care. At least the sweats donated to him by the police were clean.

“It’s fine,” Morgan said, “You’ll get cleaned up after you’ve had a rest. I think the most important thing now is for you to get some sleep.”

Morgan lowered Danny down onto a seat. Danny wasn’t sure if it was the couch or one of the chairs. He lost track where they were headed somewhere halfway across the room. It really didn’t matter, though. Whatever he was sitting on was soft, even with the towel over it, and perfect to just relax boneless into and sleep. That was all Danny cared about in that moment as he laid his head back and closed his eyes. Anything else would come later.

* * *

“Well, he’s asleep, poor kid. Now care to explain?” Abraham said, turning to Henry.

“Remember that murder I was called to late this morning?” Henry asked as he shook out a blanket and laid it over David’s crumpled and sleeping form. The boy was clearly exhausted, perhaps a result of what his body went through.

Abe nodded. “Yeah.”

“It was his,” Henry gestured to the boy then moved toward the kitchen. He needed a drink.

“What do you mean it was his?” Abe followed him, frowning as Henry pulled out a bottle of cognac and poured a splash into a tumbler. “Or do you mean attempted murder?”

“I mean this morning that boy was dead. He had a knife in his shoulder that almost certainly severed his brachial artery. His body temperature was seventy one degrees, ambient temperature of his surroundings. There was enough blood spilled out around him at the crime scene that death would be inevitable.” Henry took a swallow, glad they had decided to store something stronger than wine in the house since Henry’s break in abstinence.

Abraham frowned and recapped the bottle, placing back on the shelf. “Well, that’s all well and good, but people have survive crazy things before despite all odds. You hear about them on those survival shows.”

Henry shook his head. “Not being in an airtight body bag for forty minutes on top of that. That wasn’t the most disturbing part.” He took another swallow, thinking back to the scars. Now that he had a moment to reflect without anything else pulling away at his attention, Henry was certain there was something more to the boy’s condition that a miraculous survival story. “When Lucas removed the shirt to begin the autopsy he found someone had already done one.”

“Done what?” Abe asked. His eyebrows shot up again in disbelief. “An autopsy?”

Henry nodded. “David has the Y shaped scar used only in autopsies.” He drew in a deep breath. “He has other scars. It’s not…impossible that he’s coming from a case of extreme and sadistic abuse, but put that together with everything else…” Henry finished his drink in a large gulp.

Abe pulled the bottle off the shelf again, poured Henry a little more then got a tumbler for himself. He cursed then finished his drink in one swallow, splashing some more into his glass. “So you think what? That this kid is immortal? Like you?”

“Certainly not like me,” Henry said. He turned the tumbler in slow circles as he considered. “His body never disappeared. His collection of scar is presumably from all of his time alive whereas I’ve only kept the one scar from my first death. Any other injuries are wiped clean when I reappear. I’ve also never had this…exhaustion after a death.” He waved a hand at the figure dead asleep on the couch. “Though that could also be a result from the clear case of malnourishment he’s experiencing.”

“But you do think he’s immortal,” Abe said, leaning in toward Henry and lowering his voice. He was getting protective again. In some ways, Henry found Abraham’s protective streak for him odd. Henry couldn’t die so very little could actually touch him. It was Abraham that needed the protecting, not Henry.

“I think it’s something we need to consider,” Henry said. He didn’t want to commit to saying it out loud. The prospect was to awful and at the same time too hopeful to say out loud.

Abraham cursed again and finished his second drink. Thankfully he didn’t pour a third. They both needed to keep clear heads. “So what’s the plan? You’re not just going to tell this kid about you, are you? What if he turns out to be another psychopath like Adam?”

Henry shot Abraham a glare. “I have no intention of telling anyone anything, but we do need to investigate further. If his condition is…similar to mine and Adam’s, wouldn’t you want to know? That’s one more person in the world even remotely like myself. If that is the case can we risk Adam getting a hold of him? The boy’s fourteen!”

“No,” Abe lifted a finger to stop Henry. “The guy _looks_ fourteen. If he’s immortal then we have no way of knowing how old he actually is.”

Henry had to concede that point. “We still need to know.”

“And we will,” Abraham said with a decisive nod. “We just need to make sure the guy doesn’t go anywhere before we do.” He put the cognac away and his tumbler in the sink. “I’ll go get some sheets. He’ll have to sleep on the couch for now. Probably should get some towels and toiletries ready for him. He really does need a shower.”

“Abraham,” Henry stopped his son’s movement to the linen closet. “When he does wake up, be kind to him. Immortal or no, he’s been through hell.”

“C’mon, what do you take me for, dad?” Abraham’s crooked smile showed there was no insult and perhaps too much understanding for Henry’s request. He pat Henry’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”

Henry nodded. He turned back to the heap on the couch. Only the slow rise and fall under the blanket and the unkempt mob of hair poking out gave any indication that the lump was a person. Henry hoped for the boy’s sake that he was wrong. Being immortal was not something to be envied, and to be forever fourteen even less so. Still a part of him, a very small, selfish part, hoped it wasn’t just him and Adam trapped in the world this way.

* * *

Danny woke to the smell of eggs and bacon. It was heavenly, especially considering the only way he woke to that scent these days was to crash behind a diner and then the smell was usually tainted by the dumpsters nearby. He blinked his eyes open only to find himself staring at the inside of throw blanket. That threw him off. It took a solid minute of lying perfectly still, listening to the faint clatter of someone in a kitchen and the sizzling pop of breakfast cooking to even attempt to remember where he was. Even then it wasn’t until he heard his host’s voice.

“This is a little more elaborate than normal, Abraham.” Henry Morgan, that was the guy’s name. He was the doctor from the morgue that thankfully didn’t cut Danny open.

“Well, I figured at least one of the residents in this household needs a hearty meal, and what better way to start than with breakfast.” That was the other guy, Abraham. He was the one that owned the Antique store.

That’s right, Danny got killed…again. He was stabbed after packing up his bed-down spot in the park by some junkie looking for a lucky score. Granted, the guy hadn’t been targeting Danny specifically and it was at least partly Danny’s fault for getting involved in a fight that wasn’t his business, but that didn’t change the end result.

“Excellent idea,” Morgan said. “It’s just as well. I’m staying home today to try and sort out better sleeping arrangements for our houseguest. I was thinking we could clean out the storage room. It’s a little smaller than the ideal, but it’s better than the couch and state law requires he have his own room, even if it is temporary accommodations.”

“That could work, but we’ll need to move those things somewhere and the only place I can think of is your cave,” Abraham replied.

“Yes, that’s fine for the moment,” Henry said, “Has he shown any sign of moving?”

“Not yet, but I think I hear a stomach rumbling,” Abraham said just as Danny’s stomach let out a loud growl.

Danny grimaced and pulled the blanket down from his head. He blinked as much from the sudden light as trying to rid the grogginess filling his senses. “’M awake,” he croaked.

“There he is,” Abraham announced, entirely too chipper for Danny’s taste, while Dr. Morgan said “Good morning.”

Danny scrubbed a hand over his face. He still felt drained but not as tired as he had the day before. He looked around. He was stretched out on the couch, towels underneath him and blanket on top of him. Someone removed his shoes and lined them up at the foot of the couch. He was pretty sure when he fell asleep he was sitting up, but those last few minutes were so blurred he didn’t know.

The apartment itself was open concept, at least in the common areas. The kitchen was to one side with another corner of the room sectioned off for dining and the last third of the room a living area, where Danny was. The furniture was rich and classical with a modern twist here or there, definitely upscale. The whole place looked like it belonged to two people who owned an antique shop with a healthy income and enjoyed the finer things in life. Danny instantly felt out of place.

“Do you need help to the table, David?” Morgan asked.

It took a moment for Danny to remember the fake name he gave yesterday. “Uh, no, just give me a moment. I can manage.”

“Right,” Morgan said while standing up, “Get settled at the table then and I can do a quick checkup on your injury before we have breakfast.” He moved around down a hallway.

“That’s really not necessary,” Danny said, leaning over to try and keep the doctor in sight. “I’m fine,” he said to Abraham instead. “I don’t need another checkup and I can change my own dressings in the bathroom.”

Abraham pointed at Danny with the spatula. “You’re not just his patient. You’re basically his ward at the moment. He’s got the manners of a nineteenth century gentleman so he takes those types of responsibilities very seriously.” He shrugged, unapologetic. “It’ll only take a minute. If you’re fine then you have nothing to worry about.” Abraham turned back to the stove and flipped something over. The sound of sizzling filled the room with renewed vigor.

Danny cursed to himself. He didn’t know how healed his shoulder was. It still hurt. The pain thrummed down his arm and into his chest especially when he moved. For once, he was glad he hadn’t had much to eat in the last week. With his condition being so bad, it would slow his healing down but it probably would still be farther along than a normal person’s at this point.

Pulling his good arm down below the blanket and out of sight of anyone else, Danny focused on turning it invisible. His hand faded only a fraction before a wave of dizziness and fatigued slammed into Danny. He slumped back against the couch and had to close his eyes as the room stopped spinning and he got his bearings again. He didn’t even manage semi-transparency and he already wanted another nap. This was why he got stabbed in the first place, if he’d been in better shape he’d never have let a common junkie get him.

“David?” Abraham asked, standing over Danny with a worried frown. “You alright?”

Danny startled, eyes snapping open and pressing back into the couch.

“Sorry,” Abraham said, backing away with hands held up. “You went pale for a moment, at least more than you are right now. Looked like you were going to faint.”

 _Maybe I did blackout for a moment_ , Danny thought, wondering how Abraham got so close without his noticing. _Alright, no powers for a while_. “I’m fine, really. Just… need to work up to standing.” _Yup, that’ll convince him that you’re fine, Fenton._

“Well, good thing Henry’s going to give you that checkup,” Abraham muttered. “Sure you don’t need help?” he asked, backing up a few more steps but staying in the living room area. He watched Danny with one eye and breakfast with the other.

Just to prove he could do it, Danny pushed himself up from the couch and walked over to the table. The last few steps were more of a shuffle and he dropped into the chair heavier than he meant to, but he made it unaided. That was the important thing.

“Stubborn” Abraham muttered and returned to the kitchen. “Henry, you’re patient’s waiting!”

Danny scowled. “I don’t need a checkup,” he said as soon as the doctor came into the room with an old fashioned, black medical bag. “Really, Dr. Morgan. It’s fine. All I need is some food, a shower and some more rest, and I’ll be fine.”

“Please, call me Henry,” Henry said as he set the medical bag down on the table. “And while I agree on the food, shower, and rest, you need to have someone check on the wound site and basic vitals. There’s no telling what contaminants could have been introduced into the wound between the knife and surface contaminants.”

“I know how to check for infection,” Danny huffed. “I’ve been on the streets long enough to know the warning signs.

Henry nodded. “If that is supposed to deter me then you’re going to be disappointed. As your current guardian and the physician that treated your wound, I am responsible. Not to mention losing that much blood is going to put a strain on your system. Which reminds me,” he turned to the kitchen. “Abraham could we have a picture of water or orange juice if we have it along with breakfast. We need to get fluids into his system. We would have done that last night, but didn’t want to wake you.” Henry turned back to Danny.

Danny pressed himself back into the chair. He’d get up and move away but didn’t want to risk falling flat on his face. “I know how to manage blood loss, too,” he said, and put careful effort into keeping his tone level. 

Henry was not deterred, opening his medical bag. “While that’s both gratifying and disturbing to know it does not change the fact that you’re going to have your health and progress checked. We can either do it at the hospital or we can do it here, which do you prefer?”

“I’d listen to him, kid,” Abraham said. “Henry’s very particular about his ethical duties.”

Henry leaned forward resting both arms on his knees and looked Danny dead in the eye. “Whatever you’re trying to hide won’t go farther than these walls.”

Danny scowled. There wasn’t really any getting out of this. “Here,” Danny muttered. He could do more damage control with two people present rather than a whole hospital staff. “But you should know I don’t match the baseline very well,” he added in a rush.

“Some deviation from the average baseline is normal,” Henry said, stethoscope already around his neck and blood pressure cuff in his hands.

Danny hesitated before handing over his good arm to have the blood pressure cuff wrapped around it. “Yeah…mine’s a little more…than the average deviation…” Danny said before the doctor shoved a thermometer into his mouth. Danny watched as Henry’s expression shifted from concentration to concern as he took Danny’s pulse and blood pressure.

“This can’t be right…” Henry muttered.

“Eggs,” Abraham said, putting a large platter of scrambled eggs with what looked like peppers and onions on the table. The steam rose in tandem with the scent making Danny’s mouth water. It almost managed to distract him from the troubled expression on the doctor’s face.

“Abraham,” Henry said, “check this pulse.”

“Losing your touch?” Abraham asked and took Danny’s wrist. “Been a while but…” It took him a moment to find the right point. Danny could tell when he did, because a similar concerned frown spread over his face.

Danny squirmed on his chair. “It’s normal for me, I swear,” Danny said. He could not go to the hospital.

“Thirty-five beats per minute is…low,” Henry said, eyeing Danny. “But not impossible…just…highly unlikely.”

That was a better reaction than Danny was expecting. Maybe this wouldn’t be that bad. Henry pulled out the thermometer. His expression very carefully did not change as he read the display. Danny winced but remained silent.

“Abraham, I believe your bacon is about to burn,” Henry said, looking at his friend.

“Oh!” Abraham hurried back around the kitchen island to the stove and pulled a skillet off the burner. “Well, we’ll just have it extra crispy today,” he muttered.

Henry ignored the comment and sat down in the chair next to Danny. “You don’t need to worry. If you say it’s normal and healthy, then I believe you. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Danny frowned. That really wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

Henry placed the thermometer face down on the table. “My main concern is making sure you’re healing properly from your injury. To make sure that is happening, though, you need to be honest with me. Now, what is your average body temperature?”

Biting his lip, Danny hesitated. He glanced over to Abraham. They both seemed sincere, but he’d been fooled by false sincerity before with disastrous results. He looked back at Henry. Danny really couldn’t go to the hospital, though. “Eighty six degrees Fahrenheit.”

Henry nodded and glanced back at the thermometer before shaking it out again. “You’re a little cool for your average, then but that’s not unusual considering your physical condition and the trauma your body’s been through. The best thing to do is eat some hearty meals, drink plenty of fluids, and get plenty of rest.”

Danny eyed Henry a moment, unable to believe his luck. “So…you’re not going to freak out about me being…technically hypothermic?”

Henry frowned at Danny in a moment of consideration. “You’re awake and lucid, clearly suffering fatigue, but that’s to be expected. There’s no reason for you to lie about your average body temperature and no indications that you are lying. If your condition worsens, we’ll readdress it, but for now I’m satisfied with you basic vitals and reactions.” He pulled off his stethoscope and put it back in the bag with the blood pressure cuff.

Abraham brought over a plate of sausages and bacon. The smell would make angels cry. It was all Danny could do to not grab the closest handful of food and shove it in his mouth. A plate slid in front of him along with fork and a knife.

“Bon appetite,” Abraham said and that was all Danny needed.

Danny shoved his plate against the serving platter with the sausages and bacon. He swept a healthy serving on his plate, feeling only marginally bad for taking more bacon than was coming to him. He tried to take less eggs to make up for it.

“Don’t eat too much, too fast,” Henry said. “You stomach won’t be able to take it.”

Danny’s stomach said, yes it could handle this food, but experience agreed with the doctor. So Danny slowed his pace. For several minutes, eating took up all of his concentration. There might have been a conversation between Henry and Abraham, but Danny didn’t hear it or care. The only thing that mattered was filling himself up with the best food he’d had in weeks.

When he finally slowed down he glanced up at his hosts. They were politely ignoring his ravenous shoveling of food into his mouth with the odd comment about the day’s plans between the two of them. With his stomach growing full, a solid night’s sleep behind him, and his head finally, fully clear, Danny had to ask, “Why?”

The question drew both men to look at him.

“Why are you doing this?” Danny asked again, then clarified. “Helping me, I mean.” He forced himself to look straight at the doctor, willing the man to be honest. It had been a long time since anyone had helped him, without strings attached, at least. It had been a long time since Danny let anyone help.

Henry drew in a deep breath and looked back at Danny. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. When he did speak, it was slow and deliberate, but also seemed sincere. “You’ve been through some…very difficult things in your life… While I’m sure I can’t know or understand all of it…I’m certain I can relate to some of it.”

That wasn’t the only reason. Danny had a bad feeling it included something about the scars, especially the giant one on his chest. The doctor saw them after all. It was only a matter of time before the questions came. It was a good start, though.

“I’m going to have to check the injury site after breakfast,” Henry said, almost sounding apologetic.

“It’s not infected,” Danny said, near desperate. Abnormal health stats were one thing. Accelerated healing? That would be hard to explain.

Henry pursed his lips, considering his words again. He pushed his plate away and steepled his fingers in front of him. “When we found you, you were dead. That knife would have severed the artery and you would have bled out in seconds, minutes if you were lucky and the knife stemmed the flow. Combine that with the Y shaped scar on your chest and your reaction upon waking and it tells me this is not the first time you’ve died, for lack of a better term. Now consider your recovery and ability to use your left arm despite the severity of the wound, ignoring the parameters that the average person operates with, it’s only logical that your wound would heal faster than the average rate.”

Danny sat frozen, eyes wide, hardly daring to breathe. He didn’t know what to do with this, any of it.

Abraham leaned forward in the silence, earnest, and said, “We’re not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Danny shifted. There wasn’t any reason to trust them. Twenty four hours was not long enough to build trust or demonstrate sincerity. Without his powers, or more specifically, with his powers tied up in healing his injuries, Danny was stuck. If he wanted to sneak out he would have to do it the old fashioned way and once he got out he was going to have to figure out how to survive on the street without any of his gear. He didn’t even have a normal set of clothes.

Gripping his shaking hands under the table, pain shot down his left arm with the strain. A clock ticked from a shelf counting the duration of the silence. Danny huffed. “Fine, but you have to swear it doesn’t go in any report or journal, nothing written down, and neither of you tell anyone,” he said, looking up at each man with narrowed gaze.

“You have our discretion,” Henry nodded. He moved around the table, bringing a chair and his medical bag with him.

Abraham got up and cleared the table. He very specifically didn’t look at Danny. It helped, especially when it took a couple minutes to work up to revealing the wound in the first place. Even after Danny got up the nerve to slip off his shirt it took another few moments to get it off. Moving around reminded him how very sore and bruised he was. Normally, the minor bruises and things would be healed within a few hours, but as he noticed before, when his body had a fatal injury to manage everything else was put to the sidelines. Being short on food for so long didn’t help either.

To the doctor’s credit, he didn’t give any outward reaction at seeing Danny’s injuries. He was calm and professional. Granted he’d seen the full extent of it yesterday, had examined Danny’s corpse before any healing even had a real chance. Still, Danny always though injuries looked worse on the second or even third day. That gave time for the bruises to come out, discoloration and swelling to fully set in and make the full extent of injury known.

The main injury came first and Henry pulled away the bandages with a practiced hand and as little pain as possible. His eyes narrowed as he focus on cleaning and checking the wound. For a moment, Danny thought the entire process would pass in awkward silence, but then the Doctor started with the questions.

“How long does your body usually take to heal from injuries?” Henry asked, attention still focused on the injury.

Really, the awkward silence was better.

Henry looked up when Danny failed to respond. “I need to know what’s normal for you so I can know if something is wrong.”

Unfortunately, that was a fair point. The sounds of Abraham cleaning up in the kitchen grew deliberately louder. It was surprisingly considerate.

“I… uh… haven’t really measured it. It… it sorta depends on different things,” Danny mumbled, “normal things like small bruises and cuts heal in a few hours, more serious ones in a day or two, bones… in a week or two.” He almost shrugged but remembered to keep his shoulder still at the last moment. He twitched his head to one side instead. “It depends.” He kept his gaze on a far wall even when the doctor tried to meet it.

“Well, your physical condition is not helping your recovery. This isn’t too much healed from yesterday,” Henry said.

Danny frowned. “Really?” he asked, looking down at his shoulder. That was a little insulting. He finally got up the nerve to tell someone about some part of his abilities and they quit on him. Now, he looked like a liar.

“I do believe you,” Henry said and from his tone Danny was tempted to believe that the doctor believed him, except that it was too ridiculous for any rational person to believe. “It is several days farther along than I would have expected.”

“That’s no reason why you should,” Danny muttered.

“Except for the minor fact of a dead person coming back to life on my examination table,” Henry returned. “What you need is food, rest, and a dry, warm place of safety so your body can finally begin to recover. Let me look at your side, where we inserted the liver probe.”

Danny glanced down, surprised to find a bandage tacked over the small puncture site. When did that happen?

“I checked it last night,” Henry said. “You were exhausted and didn’t wake up.”

“Oh,” Danny chewed his lip. He didn’t like things happening to him that he wasn’t aware about, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. He ripped off the dressing with less care than the doctor showed for Danny’s shoulder.

Henry checked the wound site, humming with approval. “It seems to be healing well. I was worried about the internal bleeding, but minor bleeds can sort themselves without the need of surgery so long as we keep close watch on you vitals. Combined with quick healing and it will be fine.”

Words escaped him at the moment so Danny only nodded. The last time someone had discovered even a portion of his secret and didn’t want to capitalize on it was when Jazz found out. There really wasn’t any reason why he should trust these people. Doctors in general were too curious, too inquisitive, too intrusive. They wanted to write scientific papers and get their names published in some medical journal. This doctor, being a medical examiner would be worse if anything. It was his job to pry into people’s lives for the police.

And yet…

And yet, there was something about Henry and Abraham that made Danny want to believe they were telling the truth about keeping Danny’s condition a secret. Maybe it was just Danny hoping he wouldn’t have to make another dangerous escape from someone, that he would get a chance to heal and rest in peace.

Whatever it was, Danny was willing to wait. There wasn’t much of a choice, anyway. He would still be cautious, but for the next day or two he could afford to follow doctor’s orders and just let himself rest.

“Why don’t you go get some more sleep?” Henry suggested, gesturing to the couch.

Danny nodded again, tired all over again even though all he really did was wake up and have breakfast. He shuffled back to the couch, eased himself down and fell instantly asleep.

**TBC…**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take care of yourselves and each other! Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the wait. I was going to wrap it up in this chapter, but decided to change the ending based of some comments/suggestions I got. So now this story will be four chapters long. Enjoy! (I don't own either of these shows)

**Chapter 3**

The bell for the shop rang and Danny went still. He was upstairs in the apartment slouched on one of the couches and even though he knew he was alone, Abe was downstairs and Henry was at work, the place was still too new to feel comfortable. The slightest sound from another room or floor put Danny on his guard, ready to run, fight, or dodge conversation as much as physical attacks.

Danny was on his fourth day staying with Henry and Abe. The two men were nice enough, willing to share what they had. They cleaned out a spare room being used for storage and put a bed inside it for Danny to use. They even found some extra clothes since Danny lost all of his. More importantly, they didn't press Danny for answers.

After a couple days of rest and regular meals, Danny's healing kicked in and the injuries he had looked weeks old. Henry still insisted on inspecting them for infection and taking Danny's vitals, but never commented on the rapid improvement to Danny's condition. The doctor didn't even look all that fazed. He was surprised, curious, certainly, maybe a little shocked but not fazed, disturbed, or any other reaction Danny considered an immediate red flag. So, Danny figured it was safe enough to stay a few more days or a week. It was nice having a bed and a regular bathroom again. The food was pretty good, too.

"Jo! Henry! What brings you two here?" Abe's voice from downstairs in the shop caught Danny's attention. He glanced at the clock. It was too early for Henry to be home from work, maybe lunch?

"Just stopping by on our way to lunch," Jo said. Danny recognized the voice of the female detective from the morgue. "How's David doing?"

Danny leaned forward and focused on the conversation below.

"Oh, he's doing fine," Abe said, "resting. Poor kid's been through the ringer."

"I'll bet," Jo said, "Has he told you anything else about who he is?"

Henry spoke up. "I was explaining to Jo this morning that David hasn't said anything more about who he is or where he's from. Considering the trauma David's already been through, it might be better to just let the whole matter drop."

"And in a strange twist of irony, _I_ was explaining to _Henry_ ," Jo countered, exasperated, "That while he might be willing to throw in the towel, I'm not going to give up on the kid's case so easily. We haven't even been able to officially ID him yet. He's not coming up in any of the missing persons or runaway reports. And while Henry's right, we don't have a murder or even an assault and battery case on our hands since David wouldn't press charges, it still might be nice to at least try to find David's family. So I want to hear what you have to say on the matter. Maybe he said something to you that he didn't to Henry. You have been home with him all day while Henry's at work."

Ah, so Henry was running interference for Danny at the police station and the detective was getting frustrated.

"Ah, c'mon, Jo!" Abe said. Danny could picture the wide open hand gesture that went with the affronted tone. "You make it sound like I just sit at home all day. I have a business to run. Possible acquisitions to inspect, estate sales to visit, books to keep, I'm not just sitting at home doing nothing."

"So he hasn't said anything to you?" Jo asked again, not to be deterred.

"No, kid's quiet. Sometimes I even forget he's here," Abe said, "A lot of times he just sleeps. He's still recovering, you know."

"And we're going to let him recover in _peace_ ," Henry said, a little more emphasis one the word peace than necessary.

"Alright, fine, I get it," Jo said, no malice in her tone. "I'll leave him be but if he tells you anything that could help let me know. Now let's get lunch, I'm starving."

"Of course, Detective," Henry said. "I'll be back early tonight, Abe. It's been a slow day."

"Sure thing, Henry," Abe said and the bell rang signaling the door opening then closing.

A few minutes passed. Danny waited, he wasn't sure what for, but just in case something more happened. The seconds ticked by from the clock and turned into a minute. Just as Danny relaxed, ready to turn back to the book he had pulled off the shelf he heard footsteps on the stairs. Abe's gray hair came into view followed by the rest of him. The old man glanced around and found Danny, still frozen curled up on the couch with a book.

"You hear any of that?" Abe asked.

Danny licked his lips, pausing as he considered his reply. Admitting and denying listening to the conversation each had its dangers. These two defended him and held off the police, though, so Danny wanted to repay them somehow. The truth, or as much as he could give, was as good as any way to do it. "Yeah, that detective is still curious."

"It's her job to be curious," Abe said, coming all the way up into the living room. He kept his distance, though, staying on the other side of the room. That was one thing both Abe and Henry did, treated Danny as if he was a wounded and frightened animal, not that Danny minded the space. "She just wants to help and she thinks the best way to do that is to figure out who you really are."

"I told you my name," Danny said, gripping the book in white knuckles.

"You told us _a_ name. It's not your actual name, but that's fine," Abe held up his hands in a non-threatening gesture as Danny opened his mouth to protest. "You wouldn't be the first or last to have an alias in this household, so count yourself in like company. We're not going to pry and we're going to do our best to divert the cops, but if you do need to talk to someone we're here."

Danny was tempted to ask Abe why they were helping him again, but bit his tongue. He'd asked that question too many times already and gotten too many sincere answers. They just wanted to help, which was possible. They understood what he was going through, which was impossible. It was the right thing to do, which was debatable. It was so foreign from the cold indifference of street life. Any more understanding from either of these two and Danny was going to lose it. He didn't know what would come out if he did so he clamped his mouth closed and just nodded. He tried pushing out a "thanks" but it came out half choked.

Abe seemed to understand, though. He nodded and hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going to be down in the store rearranging some things. If you're bored, I'd be glad for a second eye, but you're welcome to just rest here, too."

Danny was sick of resting. If he was honest cabin fever had set in two days ago, hence his attempts to read poetry. It was better than the medical texts he found. "I'll come help," he said, more than happy to have something to do.

Leaving would be the smart thing to do. Claim he was taking a nap and then slip away while Abe was down working in the store. Danny's injuries had healed enough and he'd even managed to gain a couple pounds back. He couldn't justify staying here for his health, but he couldn't quite bring himself to leave the first safe, dry, and clean place he'd stayed at for months if not years. So instead Danny followed Abe down the stairs to the store as Abe glanced back with a smile.

"Mind if I put on some music while we work?" Then, when Danny shook his head, Abe added with a gleam in his eye, "You like Jazz?"

* * *

"Henry," Lucas hissed. His voice had the low conspiratorial tone he got whenever he was up to something he considered just between him and Henry.

"Yes, Lucas?" Henry asked, turning to his assistant. He braced himself.

"Remember the vampire-kid?" Lucas said glancing around to check the lab was empty.

"He's not a vampire, Lucas," Henry sighed, "Cases where a person is mistaken as deceased but is in fact alive are unfortunately more common than one might immediately presume. And of course I remember him, he's staying in our spare room."

Lucas shook his head immediately dismissing Henry's statement. "Not when _you're_ the one declaring them dead. That kid was toast and came back from the other side. I know before I likened him to a zombie, which I'm sorry for. I was a little hysterical at the time thanks to the dead reviving before my very eyes, but I think I've figured it out. He's a vampire or maybe something similar. I mean obviously the teeth are all wrong, but that's not proof of anything."

Henry rolled his eyes. He generally tried to refrain from such obvious displays of exasperation. His upbringing, however long ago, frowned on such outward emotional displays and public ridicule, but dealing with Lucas sometimes made them necessary if only to avoid snapping at the younger man. "What is your point, Lucas?"

"I have proof." Lucas insisted, holding up a plain brown folder. "That kid died sixteen years ago."

"My office," Henry muttered. He glanced around the lab making sure no one was nearby as he ushered Lucas into the more private location. There were already enough rumors going around about the excitement surrounding David, no need to add to them even if people already knew not to listen to Lucas's crazy theories. Once the door was shut, he turned back to Lucas.

"I convinced one of the guys upstairs to let me run a few searches on the databases. I knew Jo was having a hard time finding the kid, so I thought, 'hey, he was dead when he got here, maybe he was listed as dead somewhere else.' The system came back with a bunch of listings with his description, but none of them matched completely, so I just stepped it back year by year until I got this." Lucas handed over the brown folder with a flourish and proud smile.

Henry opened the folder. The first page was an ordinary death certificate for a fourteen year old boy named Daniel Fenton. The official cause of death was severe head trauma including other injuries from a hit and run accident. Turning the page, Henry's eyes immediately fixed on the photograph printed at the top corner of the page. It was the same boy that had been staying with Henry and Abe for the past week.

There was a class photo on top. Underneath were multiple from the autopsy that had been requested by the parents according to the notes. Even with the clear trauma to the head and the deceased state of the person in the photo, David's…no, Daniel's face was nearly identical. There were some minor differences. Daniel was thinner now, the hair was longer, shaggier, and he had a few more minor scars, no doubt because of life on the street.

Henry double checked the date and location of the autopsy: December 29, 2004 in Amity Park, Ohio, sixteen years, like Lucas said. Henry took a careful breath. Perhaps, it was a coincidence. Many people shared appearance with non-family relations in the world, doppelgangers as lore and pop-culture called them. Henry once again very deliberately did not let his hopes rise at the thought of having another person like him that was not Adam. Instead, he focused on the immediate problem of throwing Lucas off the scent.

Henry frowned, glancing at the location again. "This report is from another state, Lucas. How many searches did you run?"

Lucas grimaced. "I lost count. I've been doing them during my lunch break all week." He crumpled after Henry looked at him another moment. "And before work…and after it."

"Why?" Henry asked, honestly confused. Lucas could get excited about things, but this seemed over the top, even for him.

"Haven't you ever wondered if there's something more out there?" Lucas asked in a burst. He threw his hands in the air. "I mean that kid came back from the dead, right in front of us! I've never encountered anything as…inexplicable as that. And before you say it, he was definitely dead. There has to be, I don't know, something more to this. Forget the vampire stuff, what if it is the same person? That's sixteen years and he's barely aged a day!"

"I'll grant you it is a close likeness," Henry said, peering at the photo with a frown. "But it's not uncommon to have two unrelated people look very similar if not nearly identical to one another." Henry paused. He didn't want to crush Lucas, but he also didn't want Lucas investigating this any further. "I know you want this to be something more than just a near death experience, but isn't that enough in itself? Surviving an injury like David had, in those conditions, is extraordinary, but there's been examples of individuals pushing through incredible odds of survival before, for whatever reason."

Lucas gave a half-hearted shrug. "I suppose that is the more _rational_ answer than immortality." He muttered the word "rational" like it personally offended him. "But it doesn't explain the autopsy scar."

Henry sighed, closing the folder. "Alright, let's run this through according to the logic of those graphic novels you read. Supposed David does have some kind of inexplicable ability to come back from the dead. How is that going to affect you?"

"Well, it'd only really affect me if he were some sort of evil supervillain. Those types are usually either bent on taking over the world or reveling in chaos and death wherever they go." Lucas crossed his arms over his chest, warming to the thought experiment. "If he was the death and chaos type, there'd be way more bodies and blood at the scene. If he were trying to take over the world he'd either be taking the long-term approach, since he's on the street and as far away from any kind of power as you can get. He hasn't even started a gang or cult or anything so that's probably not it…"

Henry listened. He was not very familiar with the stories in Lucas's graphic novels, but he hoped they would help Lucas talk himself into leaving David alone.

"So the only other way it would affect me is if there were people after him for his abilities and they start targeting anyone that's been in contact with him. He's been living on the street and seems like he's trying to hide from…well…everybody so it's not out of the question…"

Henry jumped in the line of reasoning. "But if that were the case he would have disappeared already. He's well enough to travel, even if he is still recovering, so-"

"So why wait around to be discovered," Lucas nodded, grimacing, "and even if he was trying to hide from somebody, it's usually one curious person that blows their cover and tips off whatever shady organization where their escaped experiment is hiding." He winced at the thought.

"David's been through enough as it is," Henry said, clasping his hands with the folder behind his back. "Someone stabbed him, Lucas. They tried to kill him, and that's not even considering however long he was living alone on the street and whatever else he went through to get the other scars we saw. Let's not put him through anything more than he needs to be. How would you feel? Going through a traumatic event like that, at fourteen, and then being accused of having paranormal abilities, scrutinized for it? He has a monumental task already getting his feet under him again without the added pressure."

"You have a point," Lucas huffed. "Getting almost murdered would put a damper on anyone's year. It's not like he's showing any evil-villain or sociopathic tendencies…is he?" He looked at Henry, doubtful.

Henry shook his head. "No, Lucas. David is showing the exact reactions I would expect to see in an adolescent that's been through as much trauma as he has." Henry put as much sincerity as possible into his tone. It wasn't difficult because it was the truth. Henry knew from personal experience.

Lucas nodded. "You won't tell him I accused him of being a vampire, will you?" he glanced at Henry, sheepish.

"I'll keep this conversation between the two of us," Henry nodded.

"Thanks." Lucas checked his watch. "Oh hey, I still have a little time for a graphic novel in my lunch hour…after I go and figure out how to erase those searches from the database…Better safe than sorry," he added when Henry gave him a look.

"I suggest you not waste it, then," Henry said, motioning to the door.

Lucas skirted out of the office. When the door shut again, Henry glanced back down at the file, turning back to the picture of a very dead Daniel Fenton. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Henry's gut, as Joe would call it, said otherwise.

* * *

Henry arrived home with a strange mixture of trepidation and excitement. In the shop he could hear music floating down from the second floor with the scent of dinner cooking and the occasional voice, even a hint of laughter for a moment. It was reminiscent of a happier time when Abigail was with them, when Henry could pretend he was almost a normal father in almost a normal family, before his curse caught up with them all.

For a moment, Henry paused in the store and listened, smiling. He hesitated at going upstairs and spoiling the moment with Lucas's discovery. He'd brought the brown folder with him but still didn't know if he wanted to broach the topic with David or not. On the one hand, he knew how personal this was. He was convinced 'David' was immortal in some sense. Even if the boy didn't have Henry's exact condition, and the symptoms certainly didn't match, he had something similar enough. The end result was the same. He'd spend a few years in one location then uproot his life and move on to start over, again and again. Henry knew what that was like. Henry also knew what his own reaction would be if someone confronted him about his condition. Fear drove a person to make rash decisions.

On the other hand, Henry also knew how incredibly lonely a life of secrets much less immortality could be. This was a chance to have…someone who wouldn't grow old and die, someone not like Adam, not just for him but for David. Thinking back to his first few decades, Henry remembered how difficult the adjustment was, learning to let go of a life he'd built and go on to the next one, letting go of the friendships. David…Danny was even younger. People would notice his lack of aging sooner, notice his being alone sooner. To be forced to abandon your life and family so early for such a thing…Henry shook his head. He shuddered to think of it.

Perhaps that thought, the one of Danny at fourteen being thrust into the life Henry'd been living for the last two hundred years, pushed Henry to pull out the family album. It was the album only he and Abe looked at, carefully hidden and rarely brought out, showing their life with Abigail through the decades. Henry could count the number of people he'd voluntarily told his secret to on one hand and he wasn't sure if he was ready to add Danny to the list. He was sorely tempted, though. Danny was just so young and already had the look of being trapped and alone in a way Henry understood all too well.

"Everything alright?" Abe asked from behind.

Henry spun, gripping the evidence of both his and Danny's conditions closer. Abe's gaze darted down to the album and back to Henry, eyebrows rising.

"So are we initiating another member to this family?" Abe's tone was somewhere between cautiously hopeful and that of a man about to rattle a bear's cage.

"I don't know," Henry said, glancing down at the brown police file again. He looked at the family album for a moment before carefully placing it back into its hiding place. He couldn't talk about his own secrets yet. Danny's situation aside, they'd only known each other for a week. It was still too soon, for both of them. He couldn't lie about Lucas's discovery, though. That was the best way to kill the fledgling trust they had. "But I do think we need to have a talk."

"Talk about what?" David…Danny…their houseguest asked from halfway up the basement stairs. Henry and Abe both glanced up at the boy standing there with all the caution of a half-tamed alley cat.

"Upstairs," Henry said, attempting a smile, though it didn't do much to relieve anyone if the boy's shoulders climbing to his ears and Abe's warning glance were any indication. It didn't even help Henry, his heart suddenly in his throat. This was too soon, by far.

David, Henry would just keep with David until told otherwise, took the first seat around the table, noticeably the one closest to the stairs. He sat, half turned from the table, knee bouncing and arms wrapped around his chest. Henry settled on the other side of the table, giving David as much room as possible.

Abe paused next to the table, silently debating joining the conversation. "I'll be finishing dinner," he said after a moment. "Let me know if you two need anything." He turned and moved back to the stove. Knowing Abe's fading hearing, the Jazz still playing from the record player would help give Henry and David some privacy.

"Well?" David asked after a moment of silence. His gaze flicked between Henry, the folder, and Abe's turned back.

Henry always feared this talk, but he also always expected to be on David's side of the conversation. Taking a breath, he placed the brown folder down on the table and slid it over to David. "Lucas has apparently been doing searches for your identity during his lunch break. He approached me today with this. I've persuaded him to drop the matter."

David scowled at the folder, but made no move to reach for it. "That was the nurse guy, right? The one that kept saying I was a zombie?"

Henry winced. "Yes," he said and added, "He apologized for that, by the way." He settled into his bedside manner from the days when he had living patients and tried to imagine what he would want from this conversation if he was in David's shoes. Tell the truth, don't push for answers, give David plenty of leeway, and maybe the boy wouldn't vanish in the night as soon as they all went to bed.

David pursed his lips and glared harder at the folder. "Did you look at it?"

"Yes," Henry nodded, he clasped his hands together on the table. For a moment he regretted leaving the photo album downstairs. It wasn't fair to David to go into the conversation one sided like this. If Henry wasn't so much of a coward about it, he'd share some of his own story, too. Instead, Henry tried to let his honest goodwill for David show in every inch of his body and hoped that was enough.

David looked up to Henry for a moment, then back to the folder. He reached out, picked up the folder, took a breath and opened it. His eyes narrowed but that was all. He flicked through the pages, scanning each one before closing the folder and sliding it onto his lap. When he looked up to Henry again he probably meant his expression to be intimidating, but Henry could see the panic in the boy's eyes.

"So…" David said. His glaze flicked to Abe's back again, then settled back on Henry.

"As far as I know, Lucas showed no one else and I see no reason to either," Henry said. "Your past is your business. Neither I nor Abraham will pry if you don't want us to and I'll try to keep others from prying as well."

"Why?" David asked. His eyes were hard and he sat tense in the chair, perched on the very edge. "Why are you doing this? You don't even really know me."

Henry took a steady breath. This was the hard part, explaining without explaining. Henry couldn't tell David his secret for the same reason David wouldn't tell his, but maybe just having a secret would be enough for common ground, for the time being. "You're not the only one in this household with secrets."

David stilled and eyed Henry with wary assessment. "Abe said one of you had used an alias before."

"We've both lived under assumed identities at different points in our lives," Henry said with a nod, "We've also had to restart our lives…on more than one occasion." Henry paused wanting to say more but unsure how much was too much, or not enough. "It's difficult… not knowing who you can trust…but rest assured, no one here wants anything from you."

David pursed his lips. His gaze bore into Henry, looking for any sign of deception.

Henry shrugged, offering an apologetic smile. "I would offer you proof, if I knew how, but as it is..."

"No," David said after a beat. "Something like that needs time...You need to prove it with action."

Henry gave a deliberate nod. "Which we intend to do, if you'll let us."

David watched Henry with no indication whether Henry's plea for trust had made an impact.

"Dinner's ready," Abe said. He set down a plate of steaks in the middle of the table. The aroma made Henry ravenous and it had been a long time since he had to go through a starvation diet.

David's gaze snapped down to the steaks and back up again. His face twitched then the stalemate broke as he reached forward to claim his steak. "No promises on how long."

Henry smiled. He would take whatever time he could get.

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I re-wrote it and that became more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm still not sure I'm completely satisfied with the ending, but you've been waiting long enough so I'm just going to throw the dice.

**Chapter 4**

Danny was alone in the shop. It wasn’t the first time, but was definitely for the longest stretch. At first, Henry and Abe stayed with him because of medical concerns. He’d been stabbed. That alone warranted a close watch much less coming back from the dead. After that, Danny assumed they were worried about him running away or robbing them blind because one of them stayed at home with him for a several weeks.

Now, over a month had gone by, almost two months. Danny found himself left to his own devices more and more until today when Abe announced he’d be spending the day bouncing between several estate sales and could Danny mind the store for most of the morning and afternoon?

“Uh, sure,” Danny had replied. The casual trust threw him a moment. There was still so much these two didn’t know about him. Sure, Henry had seen the autopsy report from Danny’s first death, but Abe hadn’t. They hadn’t asked any other questions about Danny’s past, either. Which would be strange except that Henry and Abe definitely had secrets, too.

Danny glanced back toward the basement door. Sometimes, late at night, Henry would go down to his basement lab. Abe even joined him once. Danny would be suspicious if it weren’t for the fact that he’d checked in on what the doctor was up to on one occasion. While having a basement lab with medical equipment was reminiscent of home enough not to send Danny running, it was still something he thought merited caution. It turned out the doctor was just paging through an old photo album. Either way, it wasn’t Danny’s business, especially if the book was secret enough to keep in a safe.

Danny had his secrets, he wasn’t going to beleaguer his hosts for having their own so he let the matter drop. It still made him curious, though.

Danny sighed and turned back to the notebook and his doodles. It was tempting. Having a confidant, someone who knew his secret and didn’t want anything from him because of it, that would be nice. He hadn’t had that since he left home. He had a feeling that’s how it would be, too. From what Danny could tell, Abe and Henry didn’t need his powers, didn’t have ambitions that set them on a hunt for power and wealth. They just wanted to keep their heads down and stay unnoticed, just like Danny. Though, they seemed more successful at it than Danny.

No matter where Danny went, he managed to get into trouble. Usually it was his own fault, too. This most recent stabbing being the perfect example. There was no reason for Danny to get between two homeless guys picking a fight with one another, but one of them had clearly been harmless and the other clearly a predator. Danny, being the idiot he was, had to get involved and what did he get for it? A knife in the shoulder and a table at the local morgue. At least it didn’t end like his first and other deaths since, with Danny waking up in a coffin buried six feet deep.

Shaking his head, Danny huffed a tired laugh at himself. With his luck, they would have cremated him and Danny honestly didn’t know what would happen then. He’d died in a fire before, but from smoke inhalation, not burned to the point of ashes and while he didn’t like the cycle of never aging and waking up after injuries that would have killed anyone else, he hadn’t gotten to the point yet where he actually wanted to die.

Danny knew he would have to move on eventually. Even if he managed to stay out of trouble, it was only a matter of time before people noticed he didn’t age. He could fake seventeen, maybe pull off a very short eighteen or nineteen, but there was no way anyone would believe he was twenty. Which meant Danny needed to leave. His insides froze at the thought, but there was nothing for it. He’d survived on the street before, he’d do it again, even if he was getting too used to regular meals, a clean bed, and a shower any time he wanted one.

Even ignoring the creature comforts, just the thought striking out on his own made Danny lonely.

The shop bell rang and Danny looked up expecting a customer. “Oh, hi Henry.”

“Hello, David,” Henry grimaced, out of breath and moving to the phone. “I just need to use the phone. There’s been a breakthrough in the case and it was actually quicker to come here to phone it in than try and find a cab.”

“You know, you’d save yourself a lot of trouble if you just got yourself a cell phone,” Danny grinned.

“Not you, too. I get enough of that from Abe,” Henry muttered, but turned his back on Danny as he focused on the phone. “Jo! I found the missing piece of the timeline and our missing gun…No, I don’t have it with me, but I know who does have it…I’m at the shop…It was quicker to come here and call you…No, I’m not getting a cell phone…Alright, I’ll see you then.” He clicked down the receiver and turned back to Danny.

Danny leaned back in his chair, but made no effort to hide his attention. “Crack another case?”

“I believe so,” Henry nodded, rubbing his hands together asa smiled tugged at the corners of his mouth. “At least, in theory. We still need to apprehend the culprit, but knowing his identity will help all the more.”

“So, that’s a yes, but not really.”

Henry huffed a laugh. “Yes, but not really.”

The shop bell rang again and Henry turned, immediately stiffening. Danny leaned left to see around Henry. It was a tall, burly man in a cheap suit Danny had never seen before, but knowing his luck and Henry’s reaction, he could guess who the stranger was.

“Murder suspect number one, I presume,” Danny muttered.

Henry waved a frantic hand at Danny behind his back gesturing to get down even as he slid further between the man and Danny. The gesture was nice, but unnecessary. Between the two of them, Danny would bet he was better in a fight than the doctor. Danny ducked down and out of sight not for the reason the doctor wanted. It would give him an element of surprise and some cover if things went south and he had to go on the offensive.

“Mr. Hastings,” Henry said, voice calm and neutral. “Did you remember something you wished to add to your statement?”

Danny hesitated where he knelt behind the counter. Henry was going to bluff his way out of it then. That could work and it would be the best solution to the whole scenario. From the phone call, it sounded like Detective Hernandez was on her way over from the police station. They’d just needed to stall long enough. There was a large silver, serving platter leaning up against the shelf behind the counter. Danny slid it to the side far enough to catch a distorted reflection of the man.

“Yeah, I, uh, remembered something else, you know, that Elliot said about where he was going.” Hastings said, voice low and steady, but with an undercurrent to it that set Danny’s nerves on edge. “Can we go somewhere more private to talk?” Hastings jerked his head back toward the door.

They didn’t have time to wait for Jo and there was no normal way to get out from behind the counter without being seen. Danny grit his teeth, torn. He didn’t want to give anything away about his abilities, to Hastings or Henry. Time and experience had made him cautious about overtly using his powers, even the subtle ones, but he also couldn’t put his secret over Henry’s life.

“It’s probably best if you amend your statement at the station,” Henry said, turning back to the counter and picking up the phone. “I’ll let Detective Martinez know we’re coming in.” He caught Danny’s eye from over the counter and shifted his gaze to the stairs then back to Danny.

Danny scowled and shook his head. Henry gapped down at him for half a beat before mouthing ‘get upstairs’ at Danny. Really, Henry had to have been a father at some point, he had the silent, threatening look down to a T as he punched the numbers into the phone with more force than strictly necessary. Luckily, Danny’d had over a decade’s practice being a sullen teenager. He hunched his shoulders and crossed his arms.

Danny glanced back to the stairs, sneak up back to the staircase, turn invisible, come back and knock the bad guy out, but the back doorway had no more cover than the rest of the shop. Hastings was watching Henry and he would definitely see Danny dart the few feet to the corner. Which meant Henry would be stuck alone with a probable murderer and Danny knew precisely how quickly a person could get themselves killed. He turned back to the doctor and shook his head. 

A gun cocking interrupted their silent argument. “Ok, so you called my bluff, that’s fine. They’re not going to find your body anyway. Alright, let’s go.”

Henry closed his eyes. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered and putting his hands up turned around. “Is this really necessary?”

“’Fraid so, see I’m not going to jail for this or anyone else’s death,” Hastings said. He raised his voice. “You too, kid, get out here.” He stepped closer.

Danny shifted, ready to move when Hastings came into view. It’d be tricky, disarming someone with a gun got that way, but he was in much better condition than a month ago and if things got really bad he would suck it up, use his powers, and worry about the fallout after the fact. He could take care of this, no problem.

Danny never got the chance.

As soon as Hastings’s head appeared over the top of the counter and he came within arm’s length of the doctor, Henry grabbed him. Henry tried pushed the gun down and away but he moved too soon. Hastings had been too far away and had already gotten his pistol back up and pointing at Henry. Danny threw himself up and over the counter sending the phone, cash register, and the vase of pens crashing to the floor. He tackled Hastings an instant after the gunshot went off. They tumbled to the floor and Danny grabbed the man’s hair, slamming the back of his head into the ground. Hastings went limp.

“Henry?!” Danny shouted, pushing himself off of Hastings. He spun around, panic pushing his heart into his throat as he saw Henry on the ground, blood already welling up and staining Henry’s clothes center chest. “Henry!” He should have moved sooner, secret be damned.

Danny scrambled over to Henry and clamped both hands over the wound. He pressed down putting his body weight into it. Henry groaned at the extra weight. “Shit. Shit _fuckshit_!”

“David,” Henry pushed through gritted teeth. “It’s alright.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, casting his gaze around for the phone. Where the hell had the phone gone? “It’s gonna be ok. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to get an ambulance here and you’re going to be fine.”

“No, David,” Henry said, trying to push Danny’s hands away. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t move!” Danny pushed harder. There, the phone was on the other side of Henry. He just needed to get to it. “I need to keep the pressure on, but I also need to get the phone so just hold still.”

“ _Daniel_.” Henry grabbed his arm.

Danny froze and finally looked at Henry.

“It’s alright,” Henry insisted. He wasn’t frightened as he looked at Danny. He was chagrinned and in pain and embarrassed, but not frightened. “This has happened before. Listen, you need to call Abe. NO ambulance and get the blood cleaned up off your hands before Jo gets here.” He coughed, blood came up. The next breath was strained and rattling. “Do you… understand?” Henry drew in another half breath, choked, and tried for a third. “Call Abe. I’ll explain… if he doesn’t.” Then, he died. The breath went out of him and he went limp.

“Nonono,” Danny gasped. He moved to try chest compressions but only got two in before his hands dropped to the floor. “ _What_?”

Henry was gone, just…gone.

Danny blinked at the empty space on the floor. Thankfully he’d been through weird things before this. Even things turning invisible or vanishing wasn’t entirely unusual, if it had to do with ghosts, but this wasn’t a ghost this was Henry’s corpse. “Call Abe,” he muttered and reached for the phone. He paused long enough to wipe the blood off on his shirt then snatched up the phone.

The phone rang for an eternity. Then Abe picked up and Danny realized it hadn’t rang long enough for him to figure how to explain this.

“David, is something wrong?” Abe asked when Danny hesitated.

“Henry’s gone!” Danny spat out. “He was here and he was shot and now he’s just gone!”

“Wait, wait,” Abe said, voice concerned but entirely too calm. “Start from the beginning. Henry was at the shop.”

Danny nodded, pacing back and forth across the floor. The phone cradle dragged along behind him. “He had to use the phone about a case he just broke. But the suspect showed up and was going to force us to go with him at gun point. Then we jumped him and Henry got shot and he…he died and then-“ 

“Vanished?” Abe said, the definition of unimpressed. “Dammit Henry. Alright, are you ok? What happened to the shooter?”

Danny blinked. “He’s…he’s unconscious. I’m not hurt. Does…does this happen often?”

“You have no idea.” Abe sighed. “Tie the guy up and call the police. I don’t want him coming to and going after you.”

“Jo’s already on her way,” Danny said, checking out the window. “What am I going to tell her?”

“Stall,” Abe came back. The back ground noise on the call sound like he was pushing through a group of people. “I’m going to buy this credenza and then I’ll go pick up Henry.”

“Pick him up from _where_?” Danny gaped.

“We’ll explain when we get back. Don’t tell anyone anything. We’ll be back in less than an hour.” Abe hung up.

Danny looked down at the phone in his hand. “I wouldn’t know where to _start_.”

Looking around the room, Danny took in a deep breath. So Henry wasn’t dead. Ok. That was good, confusing as hell, but good. Now to deal with the cleanup. He retrieved the packing tape from the checkout desk and wrapped a dozen turns around Hastings’s hands, binding them behind his back. It wasn’t the most secure thing, but it would do for the moment. Then, he cleaned up the blood. He had more than enough practice at it and most of it was on him. He came back down stairs minutes before Jo showed up.

“Sorry it took me so long, Henry,” Jo said as she opened the door. Her eyes snapped to Hastings’s unconscious form then up to Danny sitting guard on the desk. Danny, unsure what to do, waved.

“What’s this?” Jo asked, stepping over to Hastings.

“He attacked me first,” Danny said. It was better to get these things said as soon as possible in these situations.

“Where’s Henry?” Jo asked through gritted teeth.

It took a moment for Danny to realize she was annoyed with Henry and not him. “Uh…he said something about needing to take care of something.” Vague was a good way to go when starting someone else’s alibi. 

“Was he here when Hastings showed up?” Jo scowled. “He should know better than to leave you alone with someone as dangerous as this.” She pulled out a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on Hasting’s wrists above the tape.

“He wasn’t a threat. I taped his hands. I can take him, especially with his hands taped.” Danny crossed his arms and glanced toward the street only to see Henry and Abe run in from around the corner. “Oh look, Henry’s back.” Danny himself the strained tone in his voice, just a little higher pitched than normal.

“Jo! I can explain,” Henry started before he got the door completely open.

“You left David, a _minor_ , alone with a known murder suspect!” Jo hitched her hands on her hips.

Henry floundered, glancing down at Hastings and back at Jo. “Well… his hands were taped! And he was unconscious! The man was hardly a threat in that condition.”

“And what was so important that you had to run off?” Jo asked, her exasperation would be funny but Danny was too busy studying Henry.

Henry was definitely alive, not a speck of blood on him or sign of injury. He was wearing different clothes than before, though. He glanced at Danny winced and waved a hand through the air. “I thought…I saw an accomplice and gave chase, but I was wrong.”

Jo huffed, “Well you can put it all down in your statement back at the station.” She glanced down at Hastings. “We’ll need to call an ambulance if he doesn’t wake up.”

Hastings groaned and shifted position. He froze when he couldn’t pull his hands forward. It took a moment after he blinked his eyes open to start cursing.

“C’mon, Mr. Hastings,” Jo said, pulling the man to his feet. “We have a few questions for you down at the station.”

“I’m injured,” Hastings growled, “I need a doctor.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “Dr. Morgan can look after any medical concerns you have and we’ll address them after we get to the station.” She led Hastings to the door but paused when Henry didn’t immediately follow. “Henry, c’mon. David, you should probably come too. We’ll need another car...”

“Couldn’t David’s statement wait till later?” Henry asked. “This has been very traumatizing for him.”

“No,” Danny said. “It’s fine. I can…I can do it now.”

“You sure?” Jo asked, looking at him. “We can do it later if you want.”

Danny shook his head. “No, it’s fine.” How else was he supposed to listen in on Henry’s statement if he wasn’t at the police station?

“I’ll give you a ride,” Abe said.

“Good,” Jo sighed. “Let’s everybody get to the station and get this sorted out.”

* * *

Henry had money for the taxi already out by the time they pulled up to the antique shop. “Keep the change,” Henry threw over his shoulder as he slid out to the sidewalk.

Abe and David should already be up in the apartment. Jo made sure they did Henry’s and David’s statements first, which was always tricky, coordinating a story between two people. Henry did what he normally did. He told the truth right up until the part with Henry getting shot and dying. Luckily, Hastings had already been on the ground and subdued by that point. David’s statement matched Henry’s surprisingly well and he was sent home with Abe. Jo managed to coerce Henry into helping with the interrogation and no amount of pity bargaining helped to get him out of it.

Getting Hastings to confess took much too long considering all the evidence they had on him and the fact that he blatantly threatened Henry earlier in the day. It was later than normal when Henry final managed to leave the precinct and hurry back.

The shop was closed and the door locked. Henry fumbled with the keys to get inside. He locked the door behind him and paused in the darkened store. The blinds were down blocking even the street lights and the only light came from the faint glow filtering down the stairs. He could hear Abe’s Jazz music playing upstairs and sound of something sizzling away on the stove.

Abe might have explained things to David already. Part of Henry wished he had if only to avoid the conversation. There were few times he had told anyone about his secret and even fewer times it ended well. In the past, Henry had run from situations exactly like this, but Abe was too old to just pick up and start a new life and David was too young to be left alone in this sort of existence.

Instead, Henry went to the safe and pulled out the family photo album.

“Henry!” Abe greeted when Henry reached the second floor, chipper as he’d ever been. “We were wondering when you’d get back.” He stood at the stove over a sizzling wok, spoon in hand, apron around his waist, and dish towel over his shoulder. David stood at the counter cutting up mushrooms. He looked up at Henry, biting his lip against his questions.

Abe glanced between them. “I… uh…didn’t say much about what happened today. Thought it best if it came from you.”

Henry nodded, and took a breath to steady his nerves. “We should talk,” Henry said, gesturing toward the table.

Abe turned the burner off and the music down to a faint background noise. He turned toward them but stayed by the stove. David sat down and Henry followed him, taking the same seats they had when Henry gave David his autopsy file.

“What I’m going to tell you is a secret,” Henry started. “I know you’ll understand that considering your own situation.”

David nodded. “You died today and then came back…and it’s not the first time.”

“No, it’s not,” Henry agreed. He opened his mouth to try and explain but didn’t know where to start. Instead, he carefully put the album down on the table and pushed it toward David.

David pulled the album toward himself, eyes never leaving Henry. He flipped it open and flicked his gaze at the pictures.

At first, there was no reaction. Henry didn’t expect one. The first few pages were the most recent, showing Henry and Abe as they sat now, Abe an aging man and Henry his never-changing self. It was a poor attempt to diffuse suspicion if anyone outside their family did lay hands on the album or chance to glimpse the first few pages. Henry was betting on the idea that few people would start looking at a photo album from the middle or the end.

Move past the first few pages, though, as David did now, and the photos showed a changing Abraham and an unchanging Henry Morgan. David’s gaze narrowed in confusion as he leaned forward over the album. He flipped several more pages to the center of the book. That would place him in the late fifties, if Henry was correct. A few more pages and David worked his way back to the forties when Abe was just a toddler, Abigale was still the young beauty Henry remembered, and Henry was still…Henry.

David’s gaze cut up to Henry when he hit upon one of the few photos in the album from the early 20th century. “What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a family photo album,” Henry said. He kept his gaze on David, but was grateful for Abe’s silent support a few feet away.

“Yeah, but…” David shook his head, looking back down to the pictures, “You…How?”

“I’m not sure,” Henry frowned, leaning back. “It’s a long story, but the crux of it is I don’t know what happened to me or why. All I know is I cannot age and I cannot die.”

“…Me neither,” David murmured, just barely audible. He slumped back in his chair, eyes fixed on the photographs and face fixed in a frown.

“So, we are in much the same boat,” Henry said, after a long pause.

“Not quite,” David shook his head. He opened his mouth, but closed it again, running both hands over his face and scrubbing at his eyes.

“There are certainly differences,” Henry nodded, “but in this way we have something in common.”

David frowned down at the oldest pages in the album. “How long?”

“My first death was in 1814, up until that point I had lived a relatively normal life,” Henry said. At least, his life was considered normal at the time. Now, it might be considered something more similar to a cross between a novel by Austen or Bronte and Forrester’s Horatio Hornblower.

David gaped at him. “Two hundred years,” he murmured, shaking his head. He looked back down at the album for a long moment. Billie Holiday filled the space before he spoke again. “So what? You die and just vanish?”

Henry nodded. “I come up in the nearest body of water, usually the river.”

David frowned. “Why?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” Henry said. He hesitated, unsure how the question would be received. “Do you know why…”

“Why I come back?” David finished. He took a deep breath, gave a half nod. “It was a lab accident. My parents are inventors and I was stupid and careless and messed with the wrong stuff.” He took another shuddering breath, eyes fixed on the table.

Henry reached out and put his hand on the table between them. “It’s alright,” he said.

“Nothing about this is alright!” David cut in, head snapping up and glaring at Henry. He took in a sharp breath and pushed out of his seat, pacing across the floor in a tight circle. “I’m supposed to be _thirty_! I should have graduated college, _high school_ by now! I can’t drive without a permit, I can’t vote, I can’t even buy a fucking beer, and as far as I can tell that’s never going to change! How is _any_ of this alright?”

“No,” Henry sighed, “I guess it’s not.” It was one thing to be a convenient thirty-four, quite another to be trapped at fourteen. In the 19th century, a boy of fourteen could get away with quite a bit. Back then, fourteen was almost adult for some people, for all practical purposes. Now? Not so much. “But…it doesn’t mean you have to be alone.”

David shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

Henry bobbed his head back and forth conceding the point. “I’ll grant you, staying in one place is difficult with your lack of aging, but it can be worked around for a short while. I’ve been doing it for centuries.”

David shook his head. His steps grew faster as he paced. “You don’t get it because the not-aging, the coming back, that’s only part of it.”

“What do you mean?” Henry frowned.

“I mean-” David cut off. He opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. “I’ve…never told anyone, not willingly.”

“Then you don’t have to,” Henry said holding up both hands. “Heaven knows I do not find confiding in others easy. I would be a hypocrite to demand it from someone else.”

“It wouldn’t be right. If people came after me you should at least know _why_.” David ran a hand through his ragged hair. “Look…the accident did more than…mess with my aging. I can…do other stuff, too.”

“Like what?” Abe asked, frowning.

Henry sent him a warning glare. “Abraham.”

“What?” Abe asked holding up his hands, “I’m curious!”

David choked on a laugh, though it held a good amount of hysteria. “You two really are father and son, aren’t you?” He ran shaking hands through his hair.

“Somethings don’t change,” Henry agreed. “And you don’t have to tell us, not if you don’t want to,” he repeated. “Abe will learn how to sit on his curiosity.”

“You’re the one that goes around solving mysteries,” Abe muttered. He turned back to the stove and turned on the burner. “But it’s your secret. It took dad years before he told me his and that was only because I figured out something was up and he had no choice.” Glancing at David, Abe grinned. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

David sucked in a breath. “I just….My friends were there when it happened and they always knew, and anyone that found out after that saw when I thought no one was around.” David wrung his hands, pacing again with short, quick steps, breath quick as well.

“It’s fine,” Henry said with a firm nod. He frowned. "In fact, I don't want you to tell us if it's going to cause you this much anxiety."

"Ok," David said, letting out a shaky breath. He kept pacing, though, hands twisting around each other, gaze point unseeing toward the floor.

Henry exchanged a worried look with Abe over David's head.

"Since you're up, David, could you set the table?" Abe asked, focused on turning burners back on, "Dinner will be done in just a few minutes."

Henry flashed Abe a smile as he stepped up and pulled the plates down from the cupboard handing them to David. A change of subject was exactly what the doctor ordered. "I hear you got a credenza today at the estate sale," he said, pulling down glasses for the table.

"Oh yeah," Abe said as he pushed the stir fry around. "You're going to love it. It's right up your alley, late nineteenth century, fancy inlays in the side. I'm going to have to put it in storage till there's room in the shop, but we can put pictures of it on the website."

"Very good," Henry nodded, "Was there anything else interesting?" He fished out the silverware. David was just finishing placing the plates, gaze fixed on the table.

Abe waggled his head, gesturing with one hand as he spoke. "The first sale was a bust, but the second-"

"Icanturninvisible," David spat out in a rush.

"What?" Henry and Abe asked together, turning to stare at David.

David's wide-eyed shock moved from the table to Henry, then Abe, and back to Henry. "I...I mean..." He took in a deep, shuddering breath and dropped his gaze to the floor before screwing up his face and vanishing from sight.

Abe dropped his spatula. Henry just managed to keep hold of the silverware.

David faded back into view, lingering a moment in a translucent state before becoming solid again. He looked from Henry to Abe, hands twisting, shoulders hunched. "That's...uh...one of the other things that...uh...that I can do."

Henry blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. "That's...ah..."

"Unexpected," Abe finished for him.

It seemed an understatement to Henry, but he couldn't think of anything better. "It's definitely something I've never seen before," he finally said.

"Yeah..." David choked out, gaze fixed on the floor again.

"Well…well, that's just because you've never seen yourself die," Abe said. He bent down and retrieved his spatula. He moved around Henry and washed it off in the sink. "If you ask me, it's an improvement. He still has all of his clothes on and I don't have to drop what I'm doing to drive across town to pick him up."

"Yes, that's true," Henry agreed with a sigh. He set the silverware in place on the table.

David straightened with the caution of disbelief. "So...you're fine with it?"

"Vanishing is not without precedent in this household," Abe said with a knowledgeable tilt of his chin. He set a serving dish with rice out for Henry to place on the table.

"There's more," David said, testing the waters, but his shoulders were already relaxing. “There’s so much more. You’re not going to believe half of it.”

"You can tell us while we eat or after dinner," Henry said. He retrieved the second serving platter of stir fry. "Now sit down, you're supper's going to get cold."

"I'm not actually a kid, you know," David grumbled, but he slid back into his chair.

Abe huffed a laugh. "Get used to it," he said, "I'm more than twice your age and he still tries to pull that stuff on me. What were your parents messing with that managed this?"

"It's a long story," David said, leg bouncing under the table.

"Henry's always saying that," Abe shook his head. "You really are two of a kind."

**::The End::**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Like I said at the start, this was supposed to be a 5k one shot and it just kept going. Secrets are more difficult to spill the longer you hold onto them. I don't have any current plans on continuing this but I have an unfortunate habit of coming up with ideas for things I've already finished. If anyone else wants to write a followup you're more than welcome, too!  
> Thanks for reading!


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